


Death In Life

by fhsa_archivist



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Alternate Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-07-13
Updated: 2005-07-13
Packaged: 2019-02-05 19:01:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12800346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fhsa_archivist/pseuds/fhsa_archivist
Summary: Death, survival, memories, a future





	Death In Life

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Haven, the archivist: This story was originally archived at [Fandom Haven Story Archive (FHSA)](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Fandom_Haven_Story_Archive), was scheduled to shut down at the end of 2016. To preserve the archive, I began working with the OTW to transfer the stories to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in November 2017. If you are this creator and the work hasn't transferred to your AO3 account, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Fandom Haven Story Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/fhsa/profile).

**Notes** : I watched a movie - one I shall not name - last night. It had a sad ending. This is what happened... I have now been banned from watching movies with sad ending, btw. 

 

 

_The worst friend and enemy is but Death_

_Rupert Brooks_

_The Great Lover_

_O Death in Life, the days that are no more_

_Tennyson_

_Tears, Idle Tears_

 

***

 

He's gone.

 

I don't know what to do. How to survive.

 

My dearest wish is to join him in death. Dear God, why am I still alive? One should never have to survive such pain.

 

Never.

 

'Tis an abomination that one should feel so much grief, so much anguish, yet still live. Surely this eve's events have been but a dream. A nightmare. But no. No, I am, indeed, alive. And doomed to remain in this horrifying condition. He made me promise, you see. With his dying breath, he made me promise.

 

To live.

 

I know not how I still manage to draw breath into my lungs. Why my foolish heart continues to beat. Does it not know that everything I lived for is gone? That everything I loved is dead? 

 

For I have loved only once. And, I shan't love again. I could not.

 

"You are yet young," you say.

 

I say, "How dare you presume to think you could understand?"

 

He was my world. My sun, my moon, the stars in my sky. He was the very air I breathed. Every beat of my heart was due to him. To his love for me and mine for him.

 

I cannot imagine that any other, in all of history, might have shared such a love such as I had with him. Logically, I know this is not true. That we were not the first to love so deeply and completely. But, this foolish heart of mine refuses to accept that knowledge.

 

Our love seemed - seems - so ideal. Could it truly be possible that others have known such perfection? It does not seem feasible. Perhaps, in time, I will come to accept that we were not the first to share such a love. Not yet, however.

 

Not yet.

 

My pain and loss are too fresh. I cannot see beyond them. All I can do now is suffer. And remember. How very wonderful it was. How very much I shall miss his presence in my life.

 

How do I continue to wake each morning without him? How shall I drag myself through each day? I have no answers to these questions. Somehow, though, somehow I will do these things. I will live.

 

For him.

 

I can do nothing else. I gave him my word. And, his relief upon hearing 

that promise, makes breaking my word inconceivable. He trusted me. Trusted 

that I would do as he asked. That trust shone from his eyes as he lay dying.

 

I could not bear to imagine the hurt I would inflict on him, were I to follow 

my wishes and go with him into death. 'Twould be easy, so very easy, to 

simply let death take me. To sleep and not awake.

 

But, I shall not do that. I can not do that. He never let me down in life 

and I will not let him down in death. With death.

 

I will go on. 

 

Somehow.

 

***

 

Methos closed the journal. Sadly, he stared out of the window at the gloomy day. Seemed appropriate, somehow, that gloom. Leaving Ethan had been one of the most difficult decisions of his life. He'd had no choice, though. They'd been together for over fifteen years when he'd 'died'. Friends, business associates, and even Ethan himself, had started to notice Methos' youthful appearance. 

 

Still...

 

What if he'd confessed his immortality? Surely the depth of the love Ethan had borne for him would have prevented rejection. Fear. They could have moved away from London. Found another place in which to reside. Lived happily until the mortal died his inevitable death. Which, Methos strongly suspected, would have been years later had he chosen another path for them.

 

Because he did not doubt that Ethan's death at age forty-nine had been premature. The man had been left with nothing to live for. He'd never loved again. He'd never so much as looked at another. Throughout the remainder of his short life, Ethan had remained alone, living only because Methos had forced that promise from him.

 

Yet another regret to add to his very long list.

 

He'd avoided involvement with any other since Ethan. Just couldn't bring himself to consider causing such pain again. It wasn't difficult. Every time some pretty thing - or handsome thing - caught his eye, he forced himself to remember Ethan. To reread the diary Ethan had faithfully written in every day.

 

Until the day he lost Methos, that was. After that, there were no more entries. Only blank leaves of paper. Except for that last page, of course...

 

***

 

Finally! I am dying. Soon I shall be with him again. I must trust in this, for that belief has kept me going through the years. It has been sixteen years since I lost him. Funny, that is only one year more than we were together. It seems so very much longer. A lifetime.

 

Not one single day has passed that I have not thought of him. Longed for him. Cried for him. Grieved for him. He would laugh at me for that. Crying and grieving over him for sixteen years. Always, he laughed at my foolish sentiment.

 

I knew, though, that he only used that amusement to cover the depth of his feelings for me. I always knew.

 

And now, I die. At last, I shall know peace. 

 

I cannot wait for this wretched consumption to kill me. To free me. To let me once again feel him close to me.

 

He waits for me. I am sure of this. Soon we will be together again.

 

Soon.

 

***

 

After staring blankly at that final entry for minutes on end, Methos shook himself. Leafing back, he started reading the pages from before. From the time they'd spent together. He took what comfort he could in the joy Ethan had experienced during those years.

 

And, he hoped fervently that there was no afterlife. No heaven. No Ethan searching for him. Waiting for them to share that mythic 'forever'.

 

Never again, he vowed to himself. Never again would he allow himself to love another. Never again would he let anyone down so horribly. His remaining years would be spent without a companion of the heart.

 

The all too familiar thrum of another immortal sang through his body and he groaned. Whoever it was, Methos would either kill him, or send him away coldly rejecting any overtures of friendship.

 

He looked up, eyes widening as he recognized the man standing before him. Pulled the earphones off, he laid Ethan's journal aside, and smirked.

 

"Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod," he said in greeting.

 

***

 

And so it began...

 

***

 

Finis


End file.
